The Colony
by Jateshi
Summary: [Inspired by The Prisoner] Among the Psi Corps' blackbox projects, Alfred Bester is in charge of The Colony.  Enter Number Six, The Colony's newest inhabitant... [gen, currently a oneshot, R&R, possible future chapters to be worked out]


**Title:** The Colony  
**Author:** Jateshi  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** References to "The Prisoner" and Alfred Bester's implied association with Bureau 13; references to events in Season 3.  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary**: The Psi Corps has more than one 'black' project and some of them delve deeper and stretch further than even their designers originally intended. Vacillica, an isolated colony world on the borders of Earth Alliance space, has become the perfect home for one of the Corps' oldest projects, known simply as "The Village" in records. Once it moved to its own planet, Vacillica became the next generation, so to speak, of the Village. Be seeing you.

**The Colony**

[ Accessing...  
_Input voice command. Command referenced; Incogito Viculus._  
...Voice code identification confirmed. Command destination file confirmed; accessing data...  
Personal file: Alfred Bester; The Colony project analysis.

The world was small, comparatively. Once considered an AreanLacustric world, a frozen eco-system thought to remain in perpetual stasis and be (for all intents and purposes) uninhabitable, Vacillica was added as a potential Earth colony world after discussions with the Centauri Empire revealed that no major alien government had a claim on the planet and its surrounding system. After the papers and treaties had been finalized the Earth Alliance only had to wait four decades for the planet to experience a shift on its axis that moved the planet from AreanLacustric status to ArchaeoGaian. Classifying the world as too simplistic for human life, the Earth Alliance slowly filtered the planet's system from primary star charts, letting it fade away into anonymity.

The Bureau took charge of it quickly, deeming it to be the perfect home for the Village project. It was forgotten, isolated, hard to reach via jumpgate, and more importantly, it was so far from any alien-controlled planet that all communications would go un-monitored by any potentially inquisitive race. With no fanfare Vacillica was groomed carefully, a fully-functioning and self-sufficient city planted in the middle of one of the smaller continents. A shimmering biodome enclosed the city and its forested terrain, and all over the city a detailed surveillance network was worked into the very walls and grass. From an unremarkable building nestled among the rest of the city, identical to its neighbors and without a sign or emblem showing that it housed anything more developed than water reclamation systems, every stone and footpath built into the colony could be observed.

Doctors who left their Earth Alliance positions for early retirement sometimes vanished on their way to their vacationing destination only to find themselves at Vacillica when they awoke, coaxed into service at the new facilities with the promise of few patients and a comfortable life. Technicians, dock workers, security personnel, military officers, and information specialists all risked the chance of finding their way to homes on Vacillica - and then the colony was deemed ready.

---

His shoes clicked against the metal of the ship's deck, the sound echoing in the nearly empty corridor that he traversed. Behind him a gurney rolled, pushed by one other attending telepaths and two gray-suited medical technicians, one with a scanner in hand to monitor the condition of their newest citizen. It was twilight on Vacillica when they wheeled him into building Number Six, the two medi-techs lifting the man off the gurney and placing him onto the bed, tucking the covers around his prone frame. The small escort left him there, security and observation picking up the familiar ritual that was to follow.

You could always guess what kind of a person someone was by how they woke up; the newest colonist jerked awake, pulling up into a seated, wary pose within seconds of having regained consciousness. They were going to be a difficult citizen, but surely they'd soon come to realize, as all of the colonists did, that resisting the inevitable only made it more painful in the end.

When their guest moved around, it was apparent from their steps and movements that they knew of nothing that had transpired since the three days since they'd actually left their home. Their room was made so that it perfectly resembled their flat back in Earthdome, right down to the worn-out spots on the carpet that pride had stopped him from replacing. Only when he opened his window, expecting to see the shimmer of a bioshield and beyond that the black haze of the city and instead found trees and a small cluster of buildings in the distance, that his stance changed. Tapping a button beside his screen Bester rang up his Stellar Com unit.

"Good morning, Number Six. I trust you slept well?" Part of the intimidation was his Psi Corps uniform and badge, watching for the slight widening of Six's eyes as he recognized it. "If you'd like to have your questions answered, you may pay me a visit. Number Two - the green dome." Taking his finger off of the button, he waited for Six's arrival, his part to play in this game something well-rehearsed.

Number Six arrived, Bester having watched him on Stellar Com as he ran through the colony in order to reach his goal as quickly as possible. Perhaps there was hope that Six would put that same resolve into meeting the conditions for release... there was a chance. He would learn over tea if Six was likely to take the quickest and safest route to be free. The doors opened as Number Six ran into the building, opening to allow him access to his office where Bester sat, hands folded on the arms of his chair and fingers braced together like a temple.

"Do come in, Six."

Six stood, anger making the veins on his temple throb. His voice was a roar, a fist slamming against the solid wall of the room. "What is the meaning of this? Who are you, where is this place?"

"It's a matter," Bester said, as he said to nearly every new colonist, "Of your resignation. A brilliant career, a presidential commendation, and valiant effort against the disturbers of the peace rendered by aiding the Night Watch - and yet, when Mars and Proxima Three declared independence, instead of accepting your mission to either of those locations, you resigned."

"It was my decision. I have resigned," he repeated, eyes narrowed in anger.

"Yes, but we want to know the reasons behind it."

Six smirked at him, that same infuriating expression his record showed for his ident card. "Why don't you just figure it out yourself, hrm? You're a Psi Cop - isn't that the kind of thing you do?" 

Bester's face showed his disgust at both Six's expression and the smirking reminder of one unique talent of his. It was something that Earth Gov had felt was not telepathic in any way, but made him invaluable to the special services - he had a natural ability to block most telepathic scans. Once it had been worked out to be a genetic mutation combined with a drug regimen that Earth Gov had put him on during the Earth-Membari war, he had been drafted to special services.

"You'll come to tell me," he said reasonably, Bester taking comfort in the fact that so far, every colonist had eventually submitted. "Sooner or later, you'll want to."

Six stood slowly, giving Bester and his uniform a look. His eyes skirted over the room they were in, catching posters and their mottos on the wall, noting the perfectly normal feel the office attempted to reflect. "Never. I already gave you my reasons."

"It doesn't hurt to check them again. Especially at this time, with events the way they are - it doesn't hurt at all, Six. You can roam around but unless you cooperate, you'll be a guest of the colony until you die."

Six's eyes never left Bester's. Bester gave him a jaunty salute, forefinger and thumb forming a circle and the remainder of his fingers splayed, a quirky salute from his brow. "Be seeing you."

Six left, Bester turning from the door, chair swiveling to face his console. The Colony was his pet project - and an unparalleled success. Even Six, who he would stake his life on being difficult, would eventually break to their demands. They all did.

Unlike the village, their inspiration for the colony, they never had a failure. Bester was unwilling to start now.

----


End file.
